OCR Text |
Show Tosco ready ?o move info Sand Wash project By Helen Monberg Vernal Express Washington Correspondent Washington Walt Klein, governmental govern-mental affairs representative for Tosco said here on April 15 Tosco is ready to move into oil shale development develop-ment in the Sand Wash Project in Utah. "We have just received our last permit per-mit from the state of Utah that we need to move ahead. Now all we have to do is make the monetary commitment. commit-ment. I don't see that coming soon," Klein told this correspondent during a trip to Washington. Klein now works out of the Boulder, Colo., Tosco office. He gave out while here the new 1982 report on Tosco which indicated that Tosco is committed to keeping a toehold toe-hold in oil shale development despite the termination of the Colony shale oil project in Western Colorado last year. Tosco sold its share of Colony for a gain of $190,357,000, the 1982 annual report stated. On this point Morton M. Winston, president of Tosco stated, "For Tosco the (past) year's principal event came in May when Exxon withdrew from funding its share of the Colony shale oil project, and we thereupon exercised exercis-ed our contract right to sell our share profitable." Tosco's share was 40 percent, per-cent, and it made its sale to Exxon. "We did and continue to regard the termination of Colony as unfortunate. We believe that had the project been completed on schedule in 1986 it would have operated profitably. But we learned from Exxon's withdrawal that in the enormously uncertain world that has come upon us, a new project of such capital magnitude and construction construc-tion duration simply cannot be sustained sustain-ed by private capital resources. To assure continuity of effort. . .we believe that government participation is required re-quired of a character and extent that has not yet become available," Winston wrote. "Despite the Colony sale," he continued, con-tinued, "Tosco retains three-fourths of ils oil shale reserves, including the major ma-jor Sand Wash project in Utah, and exclusive ex-clusive ownership of its leading oil shale technology. It will be ready to proceed with commeriral produclion if and when appropriate, durable assistance become available." Winston seemed to be asking for government aid in helping it with oil shale development. But Klein indicated in-dicated oil shale had been put on the backburner by Tosco, even to the point of not having much interest in the bill by Rep. Dan Marriott, R-Utah, to authorize long-term oil shale leasing. While the Toseo annual report deplored the end of the Colony project, which would have provided 18,000 barrels bar-rels of shale oil a day if the project had been finished in 1986, as scheduled, it also indicated that Tosco has oil shale development "on hold" at the present time. With the termination of the Colony project, the Tosco board of directors decided "to increase. ..our commitment commit-ment to oil and gas development" and it acquired last year and completed early in 1983 an acquisition of ASL Resources, Inc., an international exploration ex-ploration firm with interest world wide, and a 24 percent investment in a Swiss corporation call International Energy Development Corporation, also with world-wide development interests in-terests in energy, mainly in oil and gas. Exxon quit the Colony project unilaterally, the Tosco report indicated, in-dicated, and it paid $381,786,000 to Tosco for its interest. The balance sheet indicates Tosco made a $190,357,000 gain on the sale and an income of about $110 million, or $4.84 per share of Tosco stock. |